Grand Theft Auto V was the first game I ever played that forgave incompetence inability to complete a level. Should you fail to pass a checkpoint or section of a mission thrice, the game offered you the choice to skip that part altogether. Where, I wondered, was this option when Big Smoke was bellowing his iconic and infuriating “All we had to do, was follow the damn train, CJ!” line at me over and over again in GTA: San Andreas?
A few years later, Red Dead Redemption 2 launched with a similar premise: Fail a section thrice and you have the option of moving on with your life. No fuss, no muss. A number of games over the years began introducing this proposition for players whose desire to play a game may far outstrip their ability. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The latest title that I can recall to allow players this luxury was this year’s delightful South of Midnight — here, you could skip boss battles if you found them too difficult.
That brings us neatly to Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, that has four difficulty levels, which in descending order of trickiness are Brutal, Normal, Casual and Story Mode (a wonderful name, to be sure). As you’d expect, enemy resilience, intelligence and lethality varies across these levels. So do a few other factors, but we’ll get into those at a later time and in a later analysis.
Easier combat, however, doesn’t necessarily equate to winnable encounters, and that’s where the ‘skip fight’ concept comes into play in this game. ‘Gitting gud’ is less of a priority in Hideo Kojima games than experiencing the full package of narrative, gameplay, visuals and audio. With that in mind, On the Beach‘s ‘game over’ screens that pop up when you lose a boss battle include the following options: Load, Load Last Save, Return to Title Screen and Pretend You Won.
Just the name of that last option is enough to bring back memories of the easiest difficulty level in the Wolfenstein series of games that was titled ‘Can I play, Daddy?’. Accompanying it was an image of protagonist BJ Blazkowicz with a baby bonnet on his head and a pacifier in his mouth. Doom games in the past also had easy difficulty levels, titled with stuff like ‘I’m Too Young to Die’ and ‘Be Gentle!’. At face value, ‘Pretend You Won’ sits alongside these and is quite mortifying by itself. But it’s when you click on it that things get worse.
Like any responsible game, On the Beach throws up a confirmation menu, but instead of a simple “Are you sure?”, you are greeted with the following: “Imagine that the battle has been fought, and move on with the story. Note that where this takes you, the battle may not be completely over. Also, you will not receive a normal evaluation for your imaginary victories.” And your achievement for picking this option is the dubious distinction of ‘Imaginary Victory’.
You see, it’s not enough for the game to give you an easy option, it wants you to wallow and percolate in the knowledge that you didn’t make the cut when it came to eking out real victories. And instead, had to rely on imaginary ones. The ignominy of that alone might force a bunch of players to ‘git gud’ and grind out real victories. Or else, you’ll just have to make do with your imaginary victories and the bright red complexion of your face that shame brings. The choice is yours.
